Sunday, 4 April 2010

5 Days and Counting...

It is all systems go here at ATDML HQ (AKA Home!) Helen, my Auntie and Jills sister, arrived on Friday and as always got stuck in helping with retreat preparations.

After a small disaster last Thursday with an incorrect kit product arriving in a shipment from America we managed to source the product in stock and available to get to us in tme so the disaster was averted! Phew!!!

Last night we had our now traditional Make & Take play evening where we sit down and all learn to do all the Make & Takes. From experience we have learned that it is far better to have at least two if not three of us who can run the Make & Takes so that if one of us is needed elsewhere the Make & Takes can continue.

Today, while I was enjoying lunch at my Mother in laws in Lincolnshire with Darren and the children, here there were kits being packed and Make & Take boxes being checked off.

This evening we have been sorting out some of the challenges and preparing some more kits to be packed.

On the "To Do List" for tomorrow is to start the mammoth printing session that is required for each delegate to have their assorted bits of paper ready with their goody bag to give them all the information they need for the weekend. Answers on a postcard about ways around this as I ALWAYS feel guilty about the vast quantities of paper that are used in this process!

Because i like to add a few photos to my posts I am going to leave you with a few pictures from our FIRST retreat back in 2007. Next weekend will be retreat number 6 and we are so lucky that we have some really lovely groups of ladies who come back time after time. Some for both retreats and some come once a year but we consider it a HUGE compliment to have so many repeat guests.

The first photo is one of our challenge winners. This challenge involved altering an Urban Lily Secret Keeper and Nicki Harvey created this beautiful house shaped project, I am just sad to say I can't show you a photo of the inside too!

Every retreat we seem to change the shop layout a little to suit the room we have and the different display stands we are using. This was part of the shop at retreat number one and it took a lot of working out how to set it up to get as much stock out as possible without making it too cramped! I will try to remember to photograph the shop this time and see how it has changed!

Below are photos of my lovely friends Annette & Sue who were in the first ever class i taught which was on using paint and transparencies. They were of course excellent and patient students and I hope they enjoyed the class. It seems a long time ago that I was standing in the front of the classroom feeling nervous. My job before I had the children involved teaching five days a week but it was way more intimidating standing in front of 20 women rather than 30 5 - 7 year olds!

So there we have it, a sneak peek into the retreat preparations and a look at the first ever ATDML retreat.

You may be forgiven for thinking that there will be nothing but retreat preparations going on for the next week but infact we have some new goodies shipping to us this week so do keep an eye on the New Products section of the website as the new arrivals will be uploaded ASAP to join the beautiful October Afternoon Fly A Kite and Thrift Shop collections.!